The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

Now seems like a good time to start thinking about our now annual best of the year poll. We will give you until Sunday 6th December to nominate up to three favourite books, then we can run dynamic rankings for the rest of the year. Please use this thread to nominate.

As in the previous three years we will allow books first published in English in 2019 or 2020, and for translations the earliest date (1 Jan 2019) may be a first English edition of an older book, no matter how old. Dead authors are allowed, as are dead translators.

Note that my preference is that books published in 2019 should only be nominated if you read them for the first time this year, but that is just guidance, as I have no intention of trying to check (sometimes it takes a while for books to find the right readership, particularly when prize judges surprise us).

The nominations so far, alphabetically by title, are:
Abigail by Magda Szabó (1970/2020, Hugh)
Animalia by Jean-Baptiste Del Amo (2017/2019, WndyJW)
Apeirogon by Colum McCann (2020, Sam)
The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri (2019, Karen Michele)
Broken Jaw by Minoli Salgado (2019, David)
Dance on Saturday by Elwin Cotman (2020, Nadine)
Dark Satellites by Clemens Meyer (2017/2020, Neil)
Deacon King Kong by James McBride (2020, Nadine)
The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi (2020, Cynthia)
The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (2018/2020, Paul,WndyJW)
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata (2018/2020, Lark)
The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischvili (2014/2019, Tracy)
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar (2017/2020, Jen)
Faces on the Tip of my Tongue by Emmanuelle Pagano (2012/2019, Vesna)
The First Woman by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi (2020, Robert)
The Glass Hotel by Emily St John Mandel (2020, Gumble's Yard)
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell (2020, John)
Here We Are by Graham Swift (2020, Cynthia)
Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor (2017/2020, David)
I is Another: Septology III-V by Jon Fosse (2020, Neil)
The Innocents by Michael Crummey (2019, LindaJ^)
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu (2020, Tracy)
Jack by Marilynne Robinson (2020, LindaJ^)
The King at the Edge of the World by Arthur Phillips (2020, Nadine)
Lanny by Max Porter (2019, Janet)
The Liar's Dictionary by Eley Williams (2020, Lark)
The Living Sea of Waking Dreams by Richard Flanagan (2020, Gumble's Yard)
Lote by Shola von Reinhold (2020, Paul)
Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward (2020, Tracy)
The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey (2020, John)
Minor Detail by Adania Shibli (2017/2020, Karen Michele)
The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel (2020, WndyJW)
Mr Beethoven by Paul Griffiths (2020, Hugh)
A Musical Offering by Luis Sagasti (2017/2020, Vesna)
The Nacullians by Craig Jordan-Baker (2020, Robert)
Natural History by Carlos Fonseca (2017/2020, Sam)
Only a Lodger . . . And Hardly That by Vesna Main (2020, Paul)
Piranesi by Susannah Clarke (2020, Jen)
Real Life by Brandon Taylor (2020, David)
Saving Lucia by Anna Vaught (2020, Debra)
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw (2020, LindaJ^)
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (2020, Hugh)
Sisters by Daisy Johnson (2020, Jen)
Summer by Ali Smith (2020, Sam)
That Reminds Me by Derek Owusu (2019, John)
Tooth and Nail by Chris Bonnello (2020, Gumble's Yard)
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi (2020, Karen Michele)
Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann (2017/2020, Vesna)
Unwitting Street by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky (collected 2020, Janet)
The Weekend by Charlotte Wood (2019, Cynthia)
What Happens at Night by Peter Cameron (2020, Lark)
When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut (2020, Neil)
Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin (2016/2020, Robert)

I will start - my nominations are:
Abigail
Mr Beethoven
Shuggie Bain

NB this list has been edited because others have nominated two of my original choices.

Apeirogon
Natural History
Summer

The Liar's Dictionary

Earthlings

What Happens at Night

The Discomfort of Evening - obviously (is it fair on the rest to include it?)

Only a Lodger . . . And Hardly That: A Fictional Autobiography - my book of 2020

Lote - quite astonishing

The Mirror & the Light
Animalia
The Discomfort of Evening

The Eighth Life
Love and Other Thought Experiments
Interior Chinatown

The First Woman

Winter in Sokcho

The Nacullians

Hamnet

That Reminds Me

The Mermaid of Black Conch: A Love Story

Three books that are very high on my list this year.

Just finished Derek Owusu's That Reminds Me. Review coming soon, just a stunning and beautifully written, deeply moving work.

Just a note that the U.S. title for The First Woman is A Girl is a Body of Water.

I only have 2 to add as some of my favorites are already on the list:

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli
The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri (read in 2020)

I think almost all of my favourites have been already picked (no surprise) so some that have not

Tooth and Nail by Chris Bonnello
The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
The Living Sea of Waking Dreams by Richard Flanagan

Gumble's Yard wrote: "Have you read "A Musical Offering" Vesna - if so perhaps you could add that?..."

I''m just about to read it! I was so taken by his Fireflies that I decided to follow up with A Musical Offering. I'll definitely read it before 12/6 when the poll closes and have a good reason to expect to add it, unless someone else already does it.

Jack by Marilynne Robinson
The Innocents by Michael Crummey
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

Broken Jaw
Hurricane Season
Real Life

My two absolute favorites are already on the list. These three are also highly ranked for me, especially the first one:

A Musical Offering by Luis Sagasti
Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann
Faces on the Tip of My Tongue by Emmanuelle Pagano

I think we still have at least one glaring absentee - I is Another: Septology III-V surely deserves to be in this list. If I was allowed 5, Saving Lucia would be there too.

Hugh wrote: " If I was allowed 5..."

I think you should be allowed 5, Hugh, especially because I inadvertently repeated your nom of The Liar's Dictionary!

Unwitting Street

Lanny

I know Lanny came out in 2019, but I read it this year, encouraged by high praise given it by participants in this forum. I'd also vote for Abigail, but it's already been nominated.

I only nominated 2, so I'll add Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi which I just finished.

Can we make it 5?

Deacon King Kong (I can't believe it hasn't been mentioned yet)
Dance On Saturday (I can believe it hasn't been mentioned yet.)
The King at the Edge of the World

It must have been a good year! I think we should keep it to three each but I hope we can get a few more people to nominate.

Like others have said, I have arrived a bit late so most of the books I would add are already here. I can help Hugh out though by starting with

I is Another: Septology III-V

Then

When We Cease to Understand the World
Dark Satellites

I originally added Handiwork, but I think that would be classified as non-fiction so it probably opens up an avenue we don't want to go down.

Neil wrote: "Like others have said, I have arrived a bit late so most of the books I would add are already here. I can help Hugh out though by starting with

I is Another: Septology III-V

Then
..."
Thanks Neil. Handiwork certainly deserves a mention but I tend to agree that we should concentrate on fiction.

At least we will have a new winner this year - in the Paul rankings (which I think work better here as typically no one had read all the books and few people more than say half) we have had the same winner the last two years I believe.

Gumble's Yard wrote: "At least we will have a new winner this year - in the Paul rankings (which I think work better here as typically no one had read all the books and few people more than say half) we have had the sam..."
I will maintain two sets of league tables again this year, one of which will exclude the books that were nominated last year (so far just Animalia, The Eighth Life, The Innocents and Lanny). This time I will try to ensure that both are pinned to the top of the dynamic rankings thread - last year I did this later because Milkman was proving impossible to topple.

Well I did actually read the book that won the 2019 Hugh rankings, ahead of Milkman, in 2020, prompted by its victory.

So had it lived up to its billing I would be nominating it this time. But it will instead be appearing in my "least favourite books of 2020" list!

Eighth Life I think we don't need to put on a separate list. Despite being nominated it didn't receive any ranking votes last year.

Paul wrote: "Eighth Life I think we don't need to put on a separate list. Despite being nominated it didn't receive any ranking votes last year."
Any attempt to draw borderlines is tricky - The Innocents only got one vote last year, so maybe we should allow that too, and Animalia probably got at least as many new readers in 2020 as it managed in 2019 (5 rankings), but a table that just excludes Lanny would look like petty targeting.

True.

Hugh wrote: "It must have been a good year! I think we should keep it to three each but I hope we can get a few more people to nominate."

Just looked at the current list of nominations and would like to add the following:

The Death of Vivek Oji
Here We Are
The Weekend

Oh boy, I'm late to this party and my favourites are here already. But working back I can add:

Sisters
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree
Piranesi

Jen wrote: "Oh boy, I'm late to this party and my favourites are here already. But working back I can add:

Sisters
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree
Piranesi"
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree appears to have been published in 2017, but since this appears to have been a limited Australian edition and most of the group only became aware of it when the 2020 edition was longlisted for the Booker International, I think we should bend the rules a little to allow it.

The list seems pretty sound. Of U.S. critical favorites following are missing






As is JCB Winner

Giller winner

Miles Franklin winner


But I haven't gotten to any of them yet and can't say they will be missed.

Tomorrow is the last day for nominations, so if you can see any glaring omissions, now is the time to nominate them.

My favorites have already been mentioned, so I will donate one of my choices to Hugh for Saving Lucia (and will add it to my "to read" list)

Thanks for all of those contributions. Nominations are now closed, and I will start a rankings thread later today. This thread will remain open for general discussions.

Thanks.

It looks a very good list - I ranked 12 new 2020 books 5 stars (about 8% of those I read) and 9 of those 12 are there. The three missing for me are After Absalon, The White Dress and My Devotion, but I think none are widely read so doubt they'd have attracted many votes.

A little surprised not to see the Goldsmiths winner on the list, but then I was probably one of its biggest fans and I didn't nominate it so that's my fault!

Indeed looking at the list - I will have the usual problem that comes from this being a 'best of' list. There will be books that end up below average in my list here which actually are upper quartile, strong 4.5 books for me - Hurricane Season for example which I loved, but there are other books here I loved more.

I didn't even get round to reading the Goldsmiths winner - I was a little deterred by the cost, knowing that a paperback will be available early next year (I got the Pierre at less than half price).
I have the same problem with books I liked appearing near the bottom of my list.

Yes I read 30 and only 5 I rated 3* - and even for those I can completely understand why others thought the books among the best of the year (which is more than I can say for my least favourite books on most of the big prize shortlists this year).

As an aside the Goldsmith winner was perhaps the most surprise omission from the list for me.

The other thing that struck me when looking at my reviews to rank these is that of all the books I read on the list - the one that seems to have almost the least noise about it (in terms of number of Goodreads review and likes of/comments on those review) is "Mermaid of Black Conch". Hopefully the Costa shortlisting will give it a well deserved boost.

Paul wrote: "Indeed looking at the list - I will have the usual problem that comes from this being a 'best of' list. There will be books that end up below average in my list here which actually are upper quarti..."

We usually have a topic on our personal best of the year that hasn't been started yet,. I like that one to complement the consensus especially when people offer a few words on why they liked books they choose. There are often some good recommendations since they may include older fiction and nonfiction as well.

I have a difficulty with the quartet and trilogy. Taken as a whole they would both be in my top five while the newest volumes of each offered this year fall a bit lower. How is everybody else ranking them? As a whole or as individual books?

Summer might have been even higher if I had been ranking the quartet. My rankings are for the individual books but you can do whichever you are most comfortable with.

There is parts III-V (volume 2) of a septology (3 volumes) as well which, unlike the quartet and trilogy, isn't complete so is even harder to judge.

I think I've thought of it as the 2020 book judged individually but in part in terms of how it adds to the whole - so for me Summer enhanced the quartet and TMATM ruined the trilogy and the Fosse suggested the septology is building to something magnificent (but as a standalone novel would make little sense).

Two quartets think plus a trilogy and the second in a series. I ranked on the book itself but in most cases (other than Jack) I think they enhanced the series.

I had forgotten Jack - that seems a different category altogether, the same world/characters but literally an afterthought.

Whereas say with Fosse we are reading the middle section of a novel that has already been written, including the last part, but published in installments.

I enjoyed the second part of Septology even more than the first, but I suspect that their effect is cumulative, and I might appreciate the first more on a reread with hindsight. Will be very interested to see how Fosse completes the set.